Contents

On the Xmas eve everyone must be expecting wonders from NVIDIA, in particular,
from its GeForce FX which will finally arrive and kick others away... But it isn't
here yet. California casts lightnings and blasts thunder from time to time threatening
to force everyone to its 3D knees, but the real state of affairs shows that ATI
performs better than NVIDIA.

What is there that the American coddled crown in 3D graphics can pin hopes
to? Of course, they should stake on wide availability of the products released,
and first of all, on the new-comers NV18 and NV28. Today we are dealing with several
video cards based on the GeForce4 Ti 4200 with AGP8x (further called as Ti 4200-8x).

But before we scrutinize the cards, here is a list of the reviews looking at
various aspects of operation of these cards.

One of the companies might sound unknown to you - it's a Taiwanese firm named
X-Micro Technology which was
founded in 1999 and produces exceptionally gaming solutions. I hope its future
products will be as good the card we have just examined.

Cards

ABIT Siluro GF4 Ti4200-8X OTES

Albatron GeForce4 Ti4280 Medusa

Joytech Apollo Bloody Monster II GeForce4 Ti4200-8x

Leadtek WinFast A280LE TDH MyVIVO

MSI Ti4200 8x

X-Micro Impact Ti4200 AGP8x

All cards have AGP x8/x4 interface, 128 MB DDR SDRAM
located in 8 chips on both PCB sides. The memory chips are made by Samsung.

ABIT Siluro GF4 Ti4200-8X OTES

The access time of the memory chips is 3.6ns, which corresponds
to 275 (550) MHz, and the memory does work at it. By the way, the GPU runs also
at 275 MHz which is higher than the typical one of the Ti 4200. In fact, this
is the Ti 4400 with AGP8x.

Albatron GeForce4 Ti4280 Medusa

The access time of the memory chips is 3.6ns, which corresponds
to 275 (550) MHz, but the memory works at standard 256 (512) MHz. The GPU runs
at 250MHz which is also standard for the Ti 4200.

Joytech Apollo Bloody Monster II GeForce4 Ti4200-8x

The access time of the memory chips is 4ns, which corresponds
to 250 (500) MHz, but the memory works at a bit higher frequency of 256 (512)
MHz. The GPU operates at standard 250 MHz.

Leadtek WinFast A280LE TDH MyVIVO

The access time of the memory chips is 4ns, which corresponds
to 250 (500) MHz, but the memory works at a bit higher frequency of 256 (512)
MHz. The GPU operates at standard 250 MHz.

MSI Ti4200 8x

The access time of the memory chips is 4ns, which corresponds
to 250 (500) MHz, but the memory works at a bit higher frequency of 256 (512)
MHz. The GPU operates at standard 250 MHz.

X-Micro Impact Ti4200 AGP8x

The access time of the memory chips is 4ns, which corresponds
to 250 (500) MHz, but the memory works at a bit higher frequency of 256 (512)
MHz. The GPU operates at standard 250 MHz.

Comparison with the reference design, front view

Reference card NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200

ABIT Siluro GF4 Ti4200-8X OTES

Albatron GeForce4 Ti4280 Medusa

Joytech Apollo Bloody Monster II GeForce4 Ti4200-8x

Leadtek WinFast A280LE TDH MyVIVO

MSI Ti4200 8x

X-Micro Impact Ti4200 AGP8x

Comparison with the reference design, back
view

Reference card NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200

ABIT Siluro GF4 Ti4200-8X OTES

Albatron GeForce4 Ti4280 Medusa

Joytech Apollo Bloody Monster II GeForce4 Ti4200-8x

Leadtek WinFast A280LE TDH MyVIVO

MSI Ti4200 8x

X-Micro Impact Ti4200 AGP8x

Now let's move onto the design of the cards.

ABIT Siluro GF4 Ti4200-8X OTES

This one looks very extraordinary. Sometime ago
we described a similar card on the GeForce4
Ti 4200.

First of all, it has a d-Sub on the daughter card instead of the main PCB,
as well as a TV-out.

The daughter card connects to the main card with long pins. However, such a
connection method doesn't tell upon 2D quality, at least in case of the ABIT's
solution.

The photo clearly shows that the main PCB has only a DVI connector and a copper
heatsink of a massive cooler where a d-Sub was mounted before. Let me remind you
how this cooler works. When the base heats up, warm goes from the chip to the
copper pipe soldered to the heatsink base. The pipe contains low-boiling liquid
which evaporates and delivers warm to the copper plates located in the end of
the cooler. The turbine drives air through these plates providing the respective
cooling effect.

Certainly, this board is far from the reference design. Although main components
are located at their due places, like the memory and the chip, there are still
a myriad of differences.

On the right you can see how I assembled the card after I made its photo.

Albatron GeForce4 Ti4280 Medusa

This card is an exact copy of the reference sample,
including the cooler which complies with the NVIDIA's recommendations (such coolers
could be seen a lot of times on GeForce4 Ti cards).

Joytech Apollo Bloody Monster II GeForce4 Ti4200-8x

This is also a reference-based solution. The cooler
looks catchy but its cooling effect is moderate.

Leadtek WinFast A280LE TDH MyVIVO

Leadtek remains faithful to its traditions of making
"armored" cards. We have a big cooler covering the core and the memory.
On the back side there is an additional heatsink plate for the same purpose. Such
approach is of little use because when a massive heatsink is not pressed against
some chip, the latter will heat up even more. This may affect the overclocking
potential and even worsen operation at the rated clock speed.

The card differs markedly from the reference sample - it houses a temperature
sensor of the chip's surface and a thermo control chip. The LEDs placed above
indicate power supply and AGP mode. Also, there are two VIVO connectors instead
of just one (for Video-In and Video-Out separately).

MSI Ti4200 8x

MSI has developed a unique products as well. First
of all, the card supports hardware monitoring, and there is a thermo control chip
(on the photo below), a temperature sensor next to the chip (detects the heatsink's
temperature), and a tachometer of the fan.

The device is of the turbine type when air gets in at one side and out through
a pipe at the other side.

Unfortunately, MSI followed Leadtek and covered the card with the heatsinks
(the big heatsink cools down both the chip and memory, and on the back there is
one more heatsink in the form of a plate). The only strong point is that all metallic
parts are copper.

X-Micro Impact Ti4200 AGP8x

The card from X-Micro is based entirely on the reference design
and comes completed with a conventional cooler, i.e. a roundish device with vertical
fins (Gainward's favorite one :-). Such a cooler is one of the best in performance
in spite of missing mod features.

The 5 cards (except the ABIT) are coupled with the Philips 7108 codec controlling
the VIVO:

The ABIT comes with the Philips 7104 which is in charge of only a TV-out:

And all of them have the GeForce4 ti 4200-8x GPU:

Here are the accessory packs:

ABIT Siluro GF4 Ti4200-8X OTES

The box contains: User Guide, CD with drivers and
utilities (including WinDVD), adapters and extenders for TV-out (a catchy semitransparent
design), DVI-to-d-Sub adapter and several CDs with software (on the photo you
can see the contents).

250/513 -> 310/650 MHz, quite good results for the chip and excellent
for the memory.

MSI Ti4200 8x

250/513 -> 295/630 MHz, weak chip overclocking but better memory
one.

X-Micro Impact Ti4200 AGP8x

250/513 -> 305/630 MHz, average chip overclocking results and
quite good scores of the memory.

Note that:

in course of overclocking you must provide additional cooling, in particular,
for the card (first of all, for its memory):

overclocking depends on a definite sample, and you shouldn't generalize the
results of one card to all video cards of this mark or series. The overclocking
results are not the obligatory characteristics of a video card.

Test system and drivers

Testbeds:

Pentium 4 2530 MHz based computer:

Intel Pentium 4 2530 MHz;

ASUS P4T533 (i850E) mainboard;

512 MB 32bit RDRAM PC4200;

Seagate Barracuda IV 40GB HDD;

Windows XP.

Athlon XP 2000+ based computer:

AMD Athlon XP 2000+ (1666 MHz);

Soltek 75DRV5 (VIA KT333) mainboard;

512 MB DDR SDRAM PC2700;

Seagate Barracuda IV 40GB HDD.

The test system was coupled with ViewSonic P810 (21") and
ViewSonic P817 (21") monitors.

In the tests we used NVIDIA's drivers of v41.09. VSync was off, S3TC was
off in the applications.

What interesting programs of the manufacturers are shipped together with the
cards? X-Micro and Joytech haven't included any of their programs, as well as
ABIT (its GraphicMax utility doesn't work yet with the Ti 4200-8x); the Albatron's
card comes with a disc on which they mention an overclocking utility, but actually:

this is just a patch for the registry which in the NVIDIA's drivers enables a
tab with frequencies (CoolBits=3).

Here is what MSI offers: tabs in the drivers over the NVIDIA's ones: an information
panel and overclocker:

And a universal 3D Turbo Experience utility for hardware monitoring and overclocking:

In case of an error a window will come up over all the rest:

Leadtek provides the most attractive suite! Drivers' settings,

menu:

WinFox utility:

hardware monitoring:

and its own video capture program (beside the Ulead packet):

Test results

Before we start examining 2D quality I should say that there is no a complete
technique of objective estimation of this parameter because:

Almost all modern 3D accelerators can have 2D quality much dependent on a
certain sample, and it's impossible to trace all cards;

2D quality depends not only on a video card, but also on a monitor and a
cable;

Besides, certain monitors do not get along with certain video cards.

As for the tested samples, together with the ViewSonic P817 monitor and
BNC Bargocable the cards showed excellent quality at the following
resolutions and frequencies:

ABIT Siluro GF4 Ti4200-8X OTES

1600x1200x85Hz(!), 1280x1024x120Hz, 1024x768x120Hz

Albatron GeForce4 Ti4280 Medusa

1600x1200x85Hz, 1280x1024x120Hz, 1024x768x120Hz

Joytech Apollo Bloody Monster II GeForce4 Ti4200-8x

1600x1200x75Hz, 1280x1024x100Hz, 1024x768x120Hz

Leadtek WinFast A280LE TDH MyVIVO

1600x1200x85Hz, 1280x1024x120Hz, 1024x768x120Hz

MSI Ti4200 8x

1600x1200x75Hz, 1280x1024x120Hz, 1024x768x120Hz

X-Micro Impact Ti4200 AGP8x

1600x1200x85Hz, 1280x1024x120Hz, 1024x768x160Hz

Test results: comparison of the cards' performance

I keep on receiving a lot of letters where you really think that cards based
on the reference design and clocked at the same frequencies can differ in speed
as they are from different companies. That is why before the summary diagrams
from our 3Digest let me show you two diagrams of the tests of 6 cards in the Quake3
and UT2003 DEMO (the settings can be found below), 3Digest).

Five cards (except the ABIT's model) have almost the same performance level; the
ABIT is a bit more efficient, courtesy of its higher frequencies.

4. Summary diagrams of performance of the video cards on the latest drivers
for November 2002

The overclocked cards are marked with red color, the sign o/c (overclocked)
is followed by the frequencies reached. For the summary diagrams we used drivers v.41.03 for the NVIDIA cards, v.6.200
for the ATI cards (v.6.228 was used for the Radeon 9700), v.3.07.55 for the SIS
cards and v.1.02.042 for the Matrox cards.

To sum up, all the cards showed a stable and reliable operation (each worked
24 hours) and good build quality.

Conclusion

ABIT Siluro GF4 Ti4200-8X OTES - superb scores thanks to the increased frequency
(the first place among these cards), excellent 2D quality though the d-Sub is
located on the daughter card. Weak points are noise of air bursting out of the
the pipe behind, no VIVO;

Joytech Apollo Bloody Monster II GeForce4 Ti4200-8x - also a copy of the
reference sample, VIVO is provided but there is no S-Video-to-RCA adapter, that
is why owners of equipment with composite output and input can't use it;

MSI Ti4200 8x - this interesting new-comer based on its own design has hardware
monitoring, VIVO and an excellent software bundle;

X-Micro Impact Ti4200 AGP8x - this is a conventional reference based card
of top quality; it has VIVO and a relatively low price. Disadvantages: X-Micro
is little-known and it will be a problem to enter such a crowded market without
bonuses or some gems.

In our 3Digest you can find complete comparison
characteristics of video cards of this and other classes.

Highs:

Very good performance in 3D games (in the overclocking mode up to Ti 4600
and higher!);